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Comment by stolio | Hacker News Reader

If 100 biologists sign a petition saying your model is wrong that should be a sign that it's time to double-check some things. And here we have an economist lecturing scientists about how to properly view and use math? True, biology is on the "softer" side of the scientific spectrum but I'm not convinced economics is even on it.

"Math comes first" is a bad strategy. I'd (softly) argue that just like your probability of randomly hitting a rational number on the number line is zero, the probability of a given framework of math describing reality is also zero. You must explain why you think the math is relevant and descriptive of reality. Or you can demonstrate that your framework allows you to make better predictions than anything else. Either way you'll have to use your words.

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This is exactly the thing. Your mathematics may be absolutely watertight, but if your starting assumptions aren't based in reality then your result isn't going to be either. Garbage in, garbage out – and that's going to be true regardless of how "hard" or "soft" your subject is.

You could derive perfectly sound results about the population dynamics of pigs assuming that they can fly, but biologists are going to tell you you're wrong regardless of the maths – and rightly so.

Welp, I guess we're going to have to pack up the modern world and go home then. Because many of the major advances in science thus far have been widely rejected by credentialed people at first only to eventually be proven correct.

First Semmelweis, then Pasteur:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis#Conflict_with_...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur

Copernicus and Galileo vs a lot of other people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Controversy_ove...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus

Einstein and relativity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_theory_of_rela...

I could do this for days if you'd like. Credentials are worth something of course, but credentials don't have metaphysical powers that prevent a person from being wrong once they have their credentials.

EDIT:

That's not to say I necessarily believe that these folks are correct and Dawkins is wrong. Just that the credentials don't mean as much as people think they should. It's not like getting a PhD prevents you from ever having a bias ever again. It'd be great if it was true, but it's not.

Those scientists all had ideas that made demonstrably superior predictions than other ideas at the time. Evidence outweighs credentials, arguments can take a walk.

So what evidence is Taleb bringing to the table? I ask honestly, because when he says "I spent some time scrutinizing the math: it is impeccable, though unsophisticated by mathematical finance standards." I just think Please...spare me If all he has is a mathematical critique that was roundly rejected by 100 experts in the field it's time to put up or shut up. Einstein predicted Mercury's precession, Galileo predicted new laws of motion. What's Taleb predicting?

> If all he has is a mathematical critique that was roundly rejected by 100 experts in the field

So, Taleb has looked at the math and says it's good. They haven't looked at the math at all, or if they have, they've made no effort to refute it. If the conclusions are supported by the math (presumably they are, otherwise what's the point of writing the paper?) then to say "no we don't agree with the conclusion" without making any attempt to understand the way that the authors got to the conclusion is pretty freakin' suspect to use a colloquialism.

Looking into it more, Taleb's only clear connection to the paper or biology in general is an old grudge against Dawkins. He's a fascinating economist but it looks like he's out of his element here.

It looks like a complete non-story scientifically. However, Taleb's now wandered into a new neighborhood, he's insulted people, he's bragged about his math skills, and he's borderline demanded a paradigm shift in a field he has no background in. This might still get interesting considering A) Dawkins' response might be classic and B) some mathematical physicist might wander by and take issue with a group of scientists being disrespected by an economist who thinks he's good at math.

> and he's borderline demanded a paradigm shift in a field he has no background in.

I don't think that's true at all, and it makes the rest of your argument a lot weaker.

What he has said is "if someone goes to the trouble of doing the math, at least take a look at it!" because there are a bunch of people who haven't bothered to refute the math in the slightest, but who are demanding retraction nonetheless. I don't think that position is entirely unreasonable, either.

I assure you if my arguments look strong it's an illusion! Biologists know their field and they either dismiss things that anger people or they go on a million wild-goose chases. It's no-win. They know this area far better than Taleb and I have to defer to their expertise while accepting that in very rare occasions they'll be wrong.

Looking around the rebuttals[0][1][2] seem pretty non-exceptional. From the looks of it nobody's claiming Wilson's math is incorrect on a technical level, but that it's wrong on a conceptual level. Taleb's mathematical audit may have preemptively refuted a claim nobody was even making.

If Wilson et al. have a better tool it's on them to demonstrate it. Nobody needs to check the math, they just state their better predictions and the community examines them. Sometimes the claimed mathematical tools aren't even as good as the current ones, and then the correctness of the math is moot. FWICT, the biologists are saying they already have better tools and they're declining the offer to downgrade.

[0] - http://news.sciencemag.org/2011/03/researchers-challenge-e.-... [1] - https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/a-misgui... [2] - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/eo_wilson_disavows_his_... [mathy rebuttal] - http://kinselections.blogspot.com/2013/12/nowak-and-wilson-a...

I've read them, and I've yet to see anything other than a bunch of people saying "nuh uh! you're wrong!" to paraphrase. They might be smart folks, but the fact that people can't point out obvious mistakes and must simply say "it's not right" is really unfortunate.

In a lot of science there are right and wrong answers and the math (and experiments) make it obvious which is which. Here it seems to be a lot more opinions rather than facts.

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